Entertainment systems commonly found in today""s vehicles usually consist of a radio, CD/DVD player, cassette player and optionally a GPS based navigation device. The following problems are common to all such existing vehicular entertainment systems: Inadequate control interface for selecting from large numbers of broadcasts, lack of personalized broadcasts, no feature expansion, inadequate storage capabilities, no integration with portable data devices, inability to manage broadcast advertisements, and outdated navigation entry. Following is a description of each of these sets of problems.
Radios in vehicles have historically received only amplitude modulation (AM) band and frequency modulation (FM) band terrestrial radio broadcasts. AM and FM radio stations have a transmission range limited to a relatively small geographic area by government regulations. Because the number of broadcasts that can be received in most geographic areas has been relatively small, selecting a broadcast to hear in a vehicle has traditionally required no more than four types of simple receiver controls: (1) an AM/FM band selector, (2) a tuning control to allow the listener to manually scan all possible broadcast frequencies within a band, (3) a scan control that finds and plays a few seconds of each station that has sufficient signal strength to be clearly heard, and (4) a small number of preset push buttons that can each be programmed by the listener to tune to one radio station of a set band and frequency.
The small and inflexible number of radio controls creates the following two related problems: First, no method exists to select all existing AM/FM radio stations by station format or to select by format from thousands of forthcoming digital audio broadcasts. Radio stations broadcast a set format of programming (country music, news, rock music, talk, etc.). Many large metropolitan areas have up to 100 combined AM and FM stations of as many as 20+ different possible formats whose signals can be clearly received throughout most of the metropolitan area with as many more fringe stations that can be received in parts of the area. A listener must now know the band and frequency of a radio station having a desired format he enjoys. Unfortunately, in a large metropolitan area, there may be more stations of a desired format or formats than can be selected with an existing radio""s few simple preset buttons.
Several proposals have unsuccessfully tried to correct this problem by enhancing broadcast systems. Some FM stations do broadcast format information along with other digital data about the station""s programming using a method known as Radio Broadcast Data System (RBDS), also known as RDS, involving the use of FM sub-carriers. The Program Type Category (PTY) feature of an RDS radio allows searching for radio stations by their format. There are now approximately 13 manufacturers of RBDS car receivers. With an RBDS car radio, a user could tune to FM stations by their format.
However, RBDS/RDS has not been well received in the United States. Since the introduction of RDS in 1995 there were only 706 RDS broadcasters versus approximately 7,700 total FM radio stations as of a July 1998 report by the Electronic Industries Alliance. Worse yet, a February 1999 report by the Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association shows that of this small number of RDS broadcasters in the United States, only 41% broadcast their format. Therefore, RDS broadcasts do not now solve the problem for the vast majority of listeners.
The 4,784 AM stations licensed by the FCC as of May 1999 do not have an equivalent sub-carrier available to them as do FM stations to send out data about their programming. Although an international consortium of 40 broadcasters and electronic manufacturers known as Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) have proposed a digital AM broadcast system that would allow a DRM radio to tune to stations by their format, the standards for such a system have not yet been established.
Compounding the problem, new multimedia devices with wireless Internet and satellite connectivity are expected to appear in vehicles in the very near future. These multimedia devices will be able to receive existing analog AM, FM and TV audio broadcasts as well as receive and record thousands of new digital audio broadcasts. A wireless Internet receiver can receive thousands of digital broadcasts from the Internet from cellular (AMPS, GMS, etc.), paging, FM sub-carrier, satellite and other frequencies. As of June 1999, BRS Media consultant""s report shows 2,415 Internet audio broadcasts from worldwide AM/FM radio stations that simulcast their live audio broadcasts onto the Internet, up from 1,252 the previous year. Similar future Internet audio broadcast growth is expected. In addition, satellite broadcasters such as CD Radio, XM Radio and WorldSpace are expected to transmit to vehicles at least 100 new digital audio stations apiece over satellite S-band and L-band frequencies within the next few years. These stations can be received over broad geographic areas.
The vast amount of broadcast content soon to be available easily overloads existing simple vehicle radio control designs. Another shortcoming of today""s vehicles is that presets for existing AM/FM radio stations are only good for one geographic location. When traveling long distances outside an area where radio station formats are known by the listener, the most desirable radio stations from the old area that are stored in the radio""s preset button memory no longer work. The listener must manually tune the radio to each available station in the new area and listen to each station to determine if it has a desired format. If the traveler is used to hearing a syndicated program that is broadcast over many radio stations throughout a country, then he may not know what station in the new area carries the syndicated program or what time the broadcast appears in the new area. Several prior attempts have unsuccessfully overcome these two related problems. They fall into two categories.
One is the RDS broadcast system mentioned above, which broadcasts information about station formats. RDS also provides an alternative frequency list of stations playing a specific program with the same PI (program identification) code; this allows many RDS based radios to automatically switch to a new station playing the same program if the current station falls out of transmission range. However, as was mentioned above, this solution suffers in that few FM stations in the U.S. broadcast program information via RDS, and RDS does not cover AM radio stations.
The second type of solution implemented by automotive radio manufacturers such as Panasonic, Pioneer, Sony and others consists of an internal database of national radio station information contained in non-volatile memory inside a radio receiver. In some cases, this database is updateable by manual or automatic means. These radios require the listener to indicate each new location. Once that is done, frequencies of radio stations from the database that are in the new area and match the listener""s desired formats are played in sequence or are loaded into the preset memory selections of the radio.
However, this solution has not been optimal as automatic updates to the internal database that account for changes in station formats or new stations are not readily available in all markets throughout a country. Therefore, the database is likely to become unreliable and so not useful. Further, such databases do not include programming information for stations so they do not help find a station in a new area that runs the same syndicated programming found in the old, familiar broadcast area.
When driving, it would also be advantageous to receive information of personal interest when desired during a trip rather than having to wait for a scheduled broadcast of that information. RDS broadcasts, in addition to providing programming specific information as mentioned above, are also capable of constantly transmitting travel specific information such as localized traffic conditions or weather reports. However, as described above, RDS broadcasts are not in wide use in the United States and other areas, and so not even travel specific information is widely available through RDS.
Also, drivers may want more than just travel related personalized information when they travel. For example, they may want to hear news alerts about subjects that interest them, stock price alerts for securities in their portfolio, location based alerts such as reminders to do things when on a certain route, etc. While some of this desired information may be eventually broadcast by a radio station, it may be broadcast only after the listener has left the vehicle. It would be best to use travel time to hear what is desired.
Some personalized broadcast information is available today for the mobile and stationary listener. Such data broadcasts are usually done through FM sub-carriers. Examples of such FM sub-carrier based services are financial and traffic information from companies such as Data Broadcasting and Cue. Unfortunately, each FM sub-carrier broadcast usually requires a dedicated receiver for that particular broadcast.
As new personalized digital information services are offered, a receiver should ideally be able to play any new service without requiring the user to purchase a new receiver. Further, such services should be easy to add and operate and require little effort to procure. Almost no automotive entertainment devices today would meet this need. To solve this problem, a receiver should ideally be microcomputer controlled and so able to run computer applications downloaded into the memory of the device. A newly downloaded and installed application could provide any desired new feature or service. Such programs should be as simple to select, install and run as changing channels on an existing radio.
Vehicular entertainment devices that are computer controlled and so can be programmed to offer new services by simply installing a new application into the computer have been recently introduced by Microsoft and Clarion under the name xe2x80x9cAutoPC.xe2x80x9d While these devices can be programmed to offer new services, new applications are not immediately available to a motorist. The user must first purchase the program on a CD disc and then install it in their AutoPC through a CD-ROM player, just as they would install a new program on their home computer. The disadvantage of using this method of updating programs on a computer controlled multimedia receiver is that when you most may want to use a new service, it may not be available.
A number of new digital compressed audio formats have developed in the past few years for music play back, most notably the MP3 format. They have the advantage of requiring less than one tenth the space of conventional recordings while retaining good audio fidelity. While some MP3 players are in use in vehicles, these players often require the user to move a hard drive back and forth from the vehicle to a computer to transfer files to the drive. Such movement can subject the drive to damage.
Although entertainment systems in vehicles have commonly included a cassette or CD-ROM player to play back stored entertainment or information from cassette tape or CD-ROM audio disc, such devices have not commonly allowed recording of the radio in the vehicle at preset times for later play back. If a listener wants to hear one or more syndicated radio programs when driving, but those programs already aired at an earlier time, the listener misses the broadcasts.
While several attempts have been made to solve this problem by recording directly from the vehicle""s radio, they do not allow recording of more than one broadcast at a time. Further, such devices are limited to recording only those syndicated radio programs broadcast by radio stations in the listener""s area.
When audio information is broadcast that the listener would like to remember or reference later, there is no current method to conveniently record that data outside of writing a note or recording a verbal note with a memo device. This may not be possible given the traffic situation at the moment. For example, upon hearing a new song the driver may want to record the name of the song, the artist and the CD""s name, but can""t do so because both hands are needed for steering.
While some methods have become available for use in limited capture of Internet URL addresses over television broadcasts, currently no systems meet this need for immediate data snapshots of radio broadcasts in vehicles. However, only a small number of radio stations now offer play lists and other related information about their programming on their web sites so that the information a listener may want to reference may not even exist on the station""s web site. Another disadvantage of current radio station web sites is that the user must not only remember which station played the broadcast of interest, but also when and what the nature of the message was.
A great deal of personal information that may be useful when driving is increasingly stored and spread across multiple mobile computing or communication devices such as notebook computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and cellular phones. These typically contain phone numbers, addresses, to-do lists and other information that could be of use in a vehicle. However, it can be inconvenient to stop the vehicle to get a device to retrieve information when needed or dangerous to use the device when in motion. Limited access to personal computing devices in a vehicle is now only offered by the Microsoft/Clarion AutoPC. However, the AutoPC does not now permit further actions to occur on the data by its applications.
Two further problems exist with broadcast advertisements heard in a vehicle: First, there is an inability to immediately act upon the advertisement. When a radio advertisement runs that a listener in a vehicle wishes to immediately act upon, there is often no way to quickly purchased the advertised goods. If the advertisement contains a phone number that the driver can easily remember and if he has a free hand to dial, he may be able to use a cellular phone and quickly act upon the ad. If not, the desire and opportunity may be lost. A proposed solution for use with digital audio satellite broadcasts potentially solves this problem but has not yet been implemented.
Second, no method to tailor advertisements to listener interests exists. Currently, no method exists to tailor advertisements to a single listener""s interests for real-time audio broadcasts since radio advertising is designed to reach a mass audience. However, future digital audio broadcasts are expected that can be transmitted to individual receivers rather than broadcast widely. Such broadcasts may be of existing radio syndicated programs or new material. On demand personalized digital broadcasts are planned by such companies as Command Audio and Information Highway Media Corporation.
Most navigation systems in vehicles use a GPS receiver and a CD-ROM disc based map to show travel along highways. One problem with CD based navigation maps is that they require constant updating to avoid becoming outdated as they cannot show recent construction or changes in highways. Server based navigation avoids the problems of outdated CD maps as the information distributed from a server is constantly updated. Several server based navigation devices are known. However, even server based navigation systems suffer from difficulties in inputting destination addresses. Having to enter an exact street address or cross streets can sometimes take lots of time when driving and can involve input inaccuracies.